Member - CARBON CUT UK LIMITED

The Carbon Cut system has been developed by Chris Riggs (builder/developer/energy assessor for 30 years) to overcome the economic and technical problems of retrofitting insulation into cavity walls of houses, flats, and other multi-storey buildings. The system is unique in that it enables cavity wall insulation of properties that were previously difficult or impossible to insulate. This has included support for technical and market input from such organisations as The Technology Partnership of Coventry and Portsmouth Universities. These studies and reports have confirmed that Carbon Cut is a viable product from technical, energy efficiency and sustainability perspectives. The system comprises of a retrofit horizontal cavity wall tray and a unique insertion system, which enables older flats and multi-storey buildings over 12m high (Building Regulation limitation for continuous cavity) to have economic and insured cavity wall insulation installed and to achieve substantial energy savings. It also overcomes the issues of insulating cavity wall buildings that have cellars, as the system holds the insulation above the damp course, something not possible before. At present, the maximum permitted height, for a continuous cavity to be retrofitted with insulation, is three floors (12M). This is because of potential frost damage, and/or condensation/rain penetration could cross the cavity and make the living space damp if an attempt is made to go higher. The Carbon Cut system overcomes these problems by using its unique design to collect the water and divert it out through the boundary wall thus reducing “bridging” (water transference across the cavity) and the associated damp risk on the internal walls of the cavity, and by reducing frost damage to the outer walls. In addition, the system does not create further cold spots. The system provides a barrier which can close any part of a cavity completely, independent of height. Thus, when used with readily available Bead/Fibre insulation material, this provides a cost-effective way to achieve an insured insulated wall. The Company has developed, and holds patents for, the unique Retrofit Horizontal Cavity Wall Barrier (cavity tray) that can easily and economically be fitted to any new/existing buildings. A further aspect on the benefits of the Tray, it is made from recycled plastic, it is our intention to create a large demand for plastic waste, hopefully improving the environment problem of waste plastic. Carbon Cut is in the final stages of British Board of Agreement (BBA) (buildings regulator UK and EU) for the system, which will ensure acceptance with UK/EU specifiers, building control, local authorities, and insurers. The proof-of-concept pilot has met or exceeded the requirements of all the BBA tests carried out to-date (trading can begin). There is a high level of confidence and probability that the system will achieve approval for scale within the next year. The market opportunity is being helped by legislation that come into force in 2018, meaning that private landlords of flats and houses will be forced to upgrade the insulation of their flats and houses from Category F or G by at least two levels. Also, energy companies must meet carbon reduction and ECO3 targets, every building insulated reduces heating/cooling energy consumption and carbon emissions by 30%+. Failure (Landlords) to achieve this means they will be unable to create new leases on such properties Currently, it is extremely costly to have insulation enhancements in mid/high-rise buildings. To achieve similar insulation savings to those achievable with Carbon Cut, older multi-story buildings must be clad externally or dry-lined internally at a much higher cost and considerable disruption. These systems suffer the additional disadvantages in that installing dry lining loses internal space and external cladding normally requires planning consent. There are 5.4m cavities of easy/hard to treat (Government figures) that could benefit from the Carbon Cut system and buildings could potentially achieve a higher category of energy assessment. This opens a new market for cavity wall insulation, which was either impossible/hard to insulate and/or was only previously serviceable by much more expensive and intrusive methods. Access to this large market will be gained by way of advertising to the private landlord’s association by first informing, then licensing to their maintenance contractors after we have completed some fitting of trays ourselves The cost of trading will be £250,000 to cover – vans/tools/stock and running costs until payments start coming in. (unable to progress because of Covid19) We have a Innovate UK Grant to cover the completion of Insertion system up £88,000.00 Moving Forward With climate change near the top of political/scientistic problems, the major issues of CO2 and plastic waste must be tackled in an affordable way. Emissions from buildings have be addressed in two ways, reduction of energy use, and decarbonisation of energy. The latter is being address with wind and solar, but these energy supplies cannot address the energy problem, without large reduction of usage. Most buildings are large wasters of energy, construction of new buildings is improving, existing buildings have a long way to go. This area is where our affordable and sustainable Tray will reduce the consumption of energy and in turn reduce emissions. The normal way of new technology entering the marketplace is, starting in a small way/area and building coverage in time, expanding the company at the same pace. This cannot be the way forward for this technology, mainly because of time constraints, by way of the speed of Climate Change. The way forward is licensing to large companies with the capability of continental roll-out. Making this jump is challenging, being construction like to move slowly, if at all, and we will have to make a Unicorn business overnight. Step one – Technology is ready Step two – The IP value is sufficient to finance the expansion – Trademark being placed in about 40 territories. Step three – making the technology known to political/construction/insulation industries. Step four – making customers/end-users aware of the new technology, companies like, Social Housing, Private Landlords Associations, and from them finding their maintenance companies, who would be fitting our technology – further, BRE and construction companies would have to be informed. All the above would-be large users of our Trays Step 5 – After creating/assessing the demand – UK – setting Manufacture, Distribution, Fitting, license contracts. Step 6 – Premises, this would have – Office, Workshop, Stores, also an outside storage area. Parking, with room for vans and lorries Overseas Could be set-up the same as above or could be licensed to a multi-national construction company on each continent/worldwide.